Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Musings: Little Nuggets

If folks
wonder why the chemical/seed industry has been allowed to operate
pretty much unchecked in Hawaii, consider this: Laurie Yoshida,
formerly Gov. Linda Lingle's rep on Kauai, is now the island
spokeswoman for DuPont Pioneer.

In other
words, they're all in bed together.

The
Garden Island included an interesting comment from Laurie in its article on the pesticide bill coming before the County Council today:

Yoshida
also questions the county’s liability should it pass a bill it
can’t enforce.

I'd
actually love to hear more about that, since the county passed a
vacation rental bill it obviously can't enforce and has adopted new
zoning rules that define a carport with a refrigerator as a kitchen,
which it most certainly can't enforce.

No doubt
there are more examples. But where exactly does the liability come
in?

In both
that TGI article and a piece that ran yesterday in the
Star-Advertiser, industry reps never actually came out and said their
operations were safe, or that citizens had no cause for concern. No,
all their comments were focused on legalities, costs and whether the
county should enter a regulatory arena dominated by the state and
feds:

Tom
Matsuda, pesticides program manager of the state Department of
Agriculture, questioned how Kauai County will regulate pesticide use.
"We're talking about overregulation," he said.

The Council meeting will most certainly draw a large crowd, but there's one important
thing to keep in mind: a great many people will be paid to attend and
defend the status quo, while the citizens, as usual, will be present
on their own dime, their own time, to advocate for change. However, my prediction is that the bill will be deferred, no matter how many people show up.

Though
the U.S. Supreme Court's decision today likely won't change anyone's
mind about the definition of marriage, it did strike down a
discriminatory provision in federal law that prevented legally
married same-sex couples from receiving federal benefits. It's
another step forward in equal rights for all, much to the dismay of
some conservatives. I was interested to read this in the Associated Press coverage:

The
rulings came 10 years to the day after the court's Lawrence v. Texas
decision that struck down state bans on gay sex. In his dissent at
the time, [Justice Antonin] Scalia predicted the ruling would lead to
same-sex marriage.

As the
old saying goes, you can't stop progress.

A new study conducted by Friends of the Earth International
tested the shishi of 182 city-dwellers living in 18 different
European cities and found glyphosate — Roundup — in 44% of the
samples. As reported by a Wall Street Journal blog:

“This
weed killer is being widely overused,” said Adrian Bebb,
spokesperson for Friends of the Earth International. And that’s
even though hardly any genetically modified crops are grown in
Europe. Doing so on a grand scale would increase the use of Roundup
around eight-fold, according to Greenpeace.

I
wonder what we might find if we tested American pee — especially
farm workers and people living in agricultural areas.

Just when you despair that women are losing their right to choose, Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, backed by the "boisterous chanting" of a crowd mobilized in part by social media, managed to filibuster a bill aimed at restricting access to abortion in that state. The Republican Lt. Governor blamed "an unruly mob...using Occupy Wall Street tactics" for his losing control of proceedings.

As the not-so-old saying goes: You can't keep a good woman down.

And finally, I loved this little nugget: Hong Kong didn't send whistle-blower/leaker Edward Snowden back to America because there were errors in the extradition paperwork, as in a wrong middle name and no inclusion of his passport number. So much for the intelligence service....

Thank you Joan for explaining how all of the corruption conspirousy theories get going. Since Yoshida worked for Lingle when she was governor, then was unemployed for years and now has a new job, even though Lingle is no longer governor or even in office, the new employer must be corrupt. Fantastic logic.

Very smooth Joan. Don’t get your hands dirty by calling anyone “evil” directly since that would be far too low-class. Just lead your readers there so they do that on their own. How can we hope to have a rational and civil discussion when everyone with an alternative viewpoint is slandered as corrupt?

Exhibit A in this would be Michael Taylor, who was mentioned yesterday at the council meeting.